Who Is Poly Styrene? Arena

'Identity is the crisis, can't you see?

'When you look in the mirror, do you see yourself?

'Do you see yourself on the TV screen?

'Do you see yourself in the magazine?

'When you see yourself, does it make you scream?

'When you look in the mirror, do you smash it quick?

'Do you take the glass and slash your wrists?

'Did you do it for fame, did you do it in a fit?'

# Did you do it before you can write about i-i-it?

# Identity

# Is the crisis

# Can't you see?

# Identity

# Identity-y-y-y

# Yeah! #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHANTING: We want Poly! We want Poly!

I chose the name Poly Styrene because it's a lightweight, disposable product.

'Art-i-ficial!'

Yeah, it sounded all right

because I thought it was a send-up of being a pop star,

like a little figure, not me, being polystyrene.

Just plastic, disposable.

That's what pop stars all meant to me and so therefore, I thought I might as well send it up.

'In the last half century, science has devised an entirely new family of materials - plastics.'

# I know I'm artificial

# But don't put the blame on me

# I was reared with appliances

# In a consumer society

# Existence is elusive

# The kind that is supported

# By mechanical resources

# Existence is elusive

# The kind that is supported

# By mechanical resources... #

At one stage, I mean, I was much more absorbed by being Poly Styrene and playing that role

because I liked the character and I thought it was fun,

but now I'm much more like just Marianne Elliott.

# In a consumer society

# In a consumer society

# I wanna be instamatic

# I wanna be a frozen pea

# I wanna be dehydrated

# In a consumer society

# In a consumer society

# In a consumer society-y-y... #

# Just bring a little Sunlight into everything! #

'New Sunlight Lemon Liquid for that bright and happy sparkle!'

Hello. Now I'm testing the Electrolux Automatic 345.

'My mind is like a plastic bag that corresponds to all those ads.

'It sucks up all the rubbish that is fed in through my ear.

'I eat Kleenex for breakfast and use soft, hygienic Weetabix to dry my tears.'

'Whatever you're buying for your home, look in Yellow Pages first.

'You'll find what you're looking for so much quicker.'

I got my name from the Yellow Pages.

# Let your fingers do the walking... #

Can that be limper? Can we try it just a bit more...?

'I am a poseur and I don't care.

'I like to make people stare.'

And just again here.

'When I was about five or six,

'I used to have a big trunk and all the clothes in there used to come from jumble sales.

'And I used to play dressing up. And I used to make up with my powder paints.'

Where's the happiness in your life gone? That's good.

Right, down to the light. Good.

Now you've got that naughty look, you see.

You see, that's what I was after.

Now, if you could stop and stamp and turn and face me...

'I am a poseur and I don't care.

'I like to make people stare.

'My facade is just a fake.

'Shock, horror, no escape.'

# I know you're antiseptic, your... #

BACKING TRACK PLAYS

Can you hear anything? I can't hear myself.

I can a bit now, but I couldn't then.

-FAINT:

-Can you hear me now?

-Yeah.

# Her phobia is infection... #

Can you turn the track down a bit for me on my headphones?

-Do you want everything all down?

-Yeah, it's just too loud.

BACKING TRACK CONTINUES

# She's a germ-free adolescent

# Cleanliness is her obsession

# Cleans her teeth ten times a day

# Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away the SR... #

'I wanted to have a total obsession about synthetic things in the modern world,

'so therefore, I dressed to, you know, fit.

'It went with the name and the songs and everything.

'I just wanted it to be inter-related.'

'Clothes are never really you.

'That's why people wear them because you can just create an image with clothes.

'They're just part of a facade which is good fun to play with sometimes.'

It's got holes all over it.

Oh, come on, darling. I mean, you know, this is Hollywood.

SHE GIGGLES

Put that on. Try it on. Even I might too.

-Yeah, you should try it on.

-No, it's your movie, hon.

This is your life.

ELECTRIC GUITAR INTRO: "I Can't Do Anything" - X-Ray Spex

# I can't read and I can't spell

# I can't even get to hell

# I can't love and I can't hate

# I can't even hesitate

# I can't dance and I can't walk

# I can't even try to talk...

# Freddy tried to strangle me

# With my plastic popper beads

# But I hit him back

# With my pet rat

# Yeah, I hit him back

# With my pet rat... #

PLAYS GENTLE NOTES

There are certain times when you just want to hide.

You don't want people to start looking at you or see you or anything like that.

You just want to be on your own.

I mean, it isn't normal for people to be surrounded with people telling them that they're great.

That isn't a normal situation. Most people do not get that.

It isn't normal to be up on stage and people jumping all over you and ripping your clothes off.

That isn't a normal thing for anybody to take.

And then you get people coming backstage as well and then you get people coming to your house.

Then you get people trying to break in and then you get people surrounding you all the time.

You just are never on your own and that is just not normal,

so you just say, "Go away, I don't want to see anybody."

And because they think you are a performer

and you are supposed to be this thing that does all these... entertains everybody,

they think that you must be having a nervous breakdown because you don't want to see anybody.

But you're not. You're just being perfectly normal,

just saying, you know, "I want to be by myself."

'My mind is like a switchboard

'with crossed and tangled lines.

'Contented with confusion that is plugged into my head.

'I don't know what's going on.

' "It's the operator's job, not mine," I said.'

# She wants to be a woman, wants to be a man

# She wants to be a woman, wants to be a man

# She wants to be a woman, wants to be a man

# She wants to be a woman, wants to be a man

# She wants to join the hermaphrodite clan... #

BANGING OF DRUMS

Yeah, OK, we're going straight into E.

E, yes.

Just like the beginning. Just like the beginning.

GUITAR AND SAX INTRO

# Inflammable, waiting to explode

# He needs another dose of silicone

# Wants to be a woman, wants to be a man

# He wants to join the hermaphrodite cla-a-an

# Influenced by the fashion pages

# Influenced by others' phases

# It ain't hip if you are hetero

# You're a pseudo homo intellectual... #

'I started writing when I was about 12.

'I suppose they were kind of thoughts and just clearing out my thoughts.'

-Just like the beginning.

-Yeah, at the beginning, we start in E.

I started in E, but we're in different keys.

-You are.

-So from that F then, you want to go into the E straight away?

-Yeah.

THEY PLAY INTRO

-That's E, right?

-Right.

E, that's what I was doing, right? Then I changed. It wasn't the...

Let's do it again.

'Basically, I just find one word and then I write the rest around the word.

'And Identity is just...

'It's like everything. You don't think it's about you at the time, but then it could be about you.'

I've got them. They're really great.

Hang on, hang on. Let me show you.

-Oh, wow!

-Oh, terrific.

-Far out.

-Really nice.

'I like writing because I can write by myself. I can just go away and write.

'Just alone and then the rest is a series of compromises with other people.'

They're all great.

'At 15, I went and got a job,

'buying clothes for the shops, but I was just sort of learning.

'A junior.

'Then I left home and I just went hitching all the way round England.

'I just felt that I wanted to do something else and I didn't know what I wanted to do exactly,

'so I thought I'd just go away and just think about things by myself.

'Then I thought I wanted to be in a band, so I just decided to get a band together.

'I just put an advert in Melody Maker

'for "young punks who want to stick it together".

'Then that's just how it started.'

Stuck in a van...

# Why did you ever let me down? Why did you ever let me... #

If it's a jam like this all the way,

all the way to Birmingham...

-We're going to Liverpool, though.

-Oh, all right.

-RADIO:

-'That was The Buzzcocks.

'This is X-Ray Spex and a version of the song which is on the B-side of the current single, called Age.'

ELECTRIC GUITAR INTRO

That's all right.

'Well, I don't really want to go on touring for ever.

'I would never be doing anything like this when I was old.

'There's lots of other things I'd like to do like writing and things like that.'

# Age, she's so afraid

# Age, she's not the rage

# Age, she's so afraid

# Age, she's not the rage

# She never seems to realise

# Celluloid beauty never dies

# Shivering in silhouette

# Curtsey for the minuet... #

'Actually to have to go out on the road, I don't particularly enjoy that,

'especially when you just go to...

'You travel all that way, all those miles to go to some really small, little club

'and only about a hundred people sort of are there,

'which is OK if you really enjoy it, but once you've done it a few times, it's just boring.'

-I think you can take a short cut here.

-You can't go down there.

-Ask the taxi driver.

-That's a good idea.

Liverpool Street, I think it's called. Or London Street. I know it begins with an L.

-Excuse me. Do you know where Eric's is?

-We don't know where we are. That's the point.

Lost in Liverpool!

-Where's the station?

-The station is over there.

It's that way, that way, that way or just down there.

To the left.

-Are these the lights you remember?

-Yeah, this looks...

This one here, look. You see where it says...? Yeah, right here.

You come down the hill and it's down here on the left or on the right.

-Oh!

-What?

-It's all right.

-There was a dog running out.

-I thought it was going to get run over.

-Where is it? Is it over there?

-No, it's up there.

-It's up here!

-All right, all right.

One of these dingy doors.

What's all this then? Are they expecting a riot?

-Where's Steve?

-This is great.

PLAYS A FEW NOTES

ELECTRIC GUITAR JOINS IN

-Steve, we'd better go and take Poly to the hotel.

-Hello, monitor check, one, two.

It's Elliott and Stuart.

OK, thanks.

-Where is it?

-It's just through the fire door there.

-It's the police!

-Is this better?

-Yeah, hang on a minute, lads, while we get a few more in here.

-Hold on. We're stuck!

LAUGHTER

'Properties of the "polys" like polyethylene and polyester

'or polyvinyl chloride puts the "hi" in "hi-fi".'

What's this? Tomorrow's World or something?

I don't know what programme it is. I just turned it on.

I want one of those. You see shops in town where they've got all those fancy telephones.

No, I haven't seen that shop.

There's one amazing one. It's got all the workings of a telephone inside this huge glass dome.

You plunge your hand in and pull out the receiver and when you dial, you can see all the bits inside.

He now wants us on at 11, so I said he'd have to wait...

'I'm like an actress, so on stage I'm one thing and off stage I'm something else.

'But most people are not.

'They just perform all the time.

'I just consider myself as a person first

'and anything else what anybody else might call you,

'well, they're just names, really, aren't they,

'just given to trends and people and things like that.

'It's dark and eerie and it's really late.

'Come on, kids, don't hesitate.

'We're going down to the underground.

'The subterranean is a bottomless pit.

'The vinyl vultures are after it.

'Molten lava, sulphur vapours,

'smoulder on to obliterate us.

'If you've got the urge, come on, let's submerge.'

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

SHOUTING

CHEERING

Art-i-ficial!

THRASHING GUITAR INTRO

# I know I'm artificial

# But don't put the blame on me

# I was reared with appliances

# In a consumer society

# In a consumer society

# My existence is elusive

# The kind that is supported

# By mechanical resources... #

'When you get an audience going hysterical or screaming or things like that,

'that's not a sort of normal thing to do.

'It's like an exaggerated peak period

'and a series of places in a certain period of time

'and you just go from one lot of hysterical people to the next lot of hysterical people

'to the next lot of hysterical people to the next lot,

'which is just, you know, just too much.'

# I-i-in a consumer society

# I wanna be instamatic

# I wanna be a frozen pea

# I wanna be dehydrated

# In a consumer society

# In a consumer society

# I-i-i-n a consumer society! #

'These mice are taking part in an experiment that promises to be one of the most explosive issues

'of the future. For the last four years, Prof John Maynard Smith has been working on a technique

'that could dramatically extend the lives not only of mice, but men.

'Back in 1994...'

'They can deliberately upgrade the intelligence of animals now if they want.

'They could sort of genetically engineer people for certain jobs.'

'..the eggs were fertilised... and these mice were born.'

'In the wrong hands and used the wrong way, it's terrible.

'I find that quite frightening that we won't have much control.'

'The question now is should we do it with human beings. We can't do it for adults,

'but should we do it with an egg? Should we do it for an unborn human being?'

# It's so very tempting

# Will biologists resist

# When he becomes the creator

# Will he let us exi-i-i-st? #

'It's so very tempting, Will biologists resist?

'When he becomes the creator Will he let us exist?

'Genetic engineering could create the perfect race

'Could create an unknown life force That could us exterminate.'

# It's so very tempting

# Will biologists resist?

# When he becomes the creator

# Will he let us exi-i-i-ist? #

'When you feel that you're not an individual,

'then it seems more important.

'Maybe you're just one person in a great big, great big organisation

'and you just think, "How boring."

'Then you think, "Wouldn't it be great to be an individual?" But people recognise you.

'Then you think, "Oh, God. Why can't I be just, you know, walking along like everybody else?"

'Nobody stops them and they can just get on with what they're doing and nobody says anything.'

-The blue one's probably the next one round, actually.

-Yeah.

OK, here.

136 and 134.

-Is that going to be all right?

-Yeah, I think so. It's fine.

We'll be rehearsing with you very shortly now. If you'd like to go into the studio and wait around.

Mike, can you just have a word with her and ask her if she will go through the next numbers

as she's going to do it on the show tonight? She's going to talk now. I believe.

-No, I'm not going to do any chatting between this one.

-Well, someone was lying.

-Never mind.

-No, I don't mind no chat, but someone just told me that she was going to chat.

-It starts on lead guitar. Four...

-# I live off you

One, two, three, four!

And go into the guitar, Ron.

See the sax, Three.

Out you come, Two.

Oh, all right. Out you come, Three.

-See her, Two, thank you.

-# I live off you

-# You live off me... #

-Use you as a cutaway, Ron.

Once you've viewed One, get him out.

It's the other hand, yeah. It's the other hand.

Out you come now, Ron.

Actually, it's not bad.

Using you for that, Three.

Well, let's get Three out now.

Well, he can go across. Take one.

Up you go to the sax, One.

Three to the desk.

Is that it?

And back to the desk on Three.

So we're going to do a dress rehearsal?

-So, Mike, if Poly and X-Ray Spex can liaise...

-OK, thank you.

I could remember what Oh Bondage Up Yours came out on, originally.

-Virgin.

-It was Virgin?!

-Yeah.

-Was it? I knew it wasn't EMI.

-No, it was Virgin.

-But...

-This is an example of the new EMI image!

Are you the man responsible?

Yes!

You've got to say that, anyway, I suppose.

MUSIC: "Old Grey Whistle Test" THEME

Luther, quickly. 28 seconds.

Close up on Three.

Eight. Seven. Six.

Five. Four. Three.

-Two. One. Zero.

-Cue her.

'Now the relaxation sequence.

'Relax.

'Relax. The whole of my body relaxed.

'This man says he survives the outer chaos because he can create his own inner calm.'

'If you just are yourself most of the time

'and you just act out this other character just another part of the time,

'then it's OK, I suppose.

'Not forever, but...

'Cos there's just things that you wanna do on your own, you know, which you never get time to do

'cos you get totally absorbed by all the performance and everything that goes with it,

'so you neglect a lot of things that you'd probably do otherwise.'

RECORDING: Here are the songs of some of the birds of London parks and gardens.

We start with the wood pigeon and robin.

'I still wouldn't mind furthering my education properly, finishing it off when I'm a bit older.

'Science interests me quite a lot.

-SHE LAUGHS

-'Science and biology.

'Basically, cos of the future possibilities of those areas.'

BIRDSONG

# I'm a cliche, I'm a cliche I'm a cliche

# I'm a cliche I'm a cliche you've seen before

# I'm a cliche that lives next door I'm a cliche, know what I mean

# I'm a cliche, pink is obscene

-# Yama yama yama

-Yama yama yama boring boredom

# Yama yama yama, yama yama yama Boring boredom, boring boredom... #

'I'm a cliche in the sense that I've got two feet, two hands, tem fingers...!

'Two eyes, hair.

-LAUGHS

-'Brain. Whether that counts or not in cliches, I'm not sure.

'But...

-'And a body and two legs, so, yeah, I'm a cliche!

-SHE GIGGLES

# Yama yama yama, yama yama yama Boring boredom, boring boredom

# Yama yama yama, yama yama yama Boring boredom, boring boredom

# Yama yama yama, yama yama yama Boring boredom, boring boredom

# Yama yama yama, yama yama yama Boring boredom, boring boredom. #

'"I drove my polypropylene car On wheels of sponge

'"Then pulled in to a Wimpy Bar To have a rubber bun

'"I clambered over mounds and mounds of polystyrene foam

'"Then fell into a swimming pool Filled with Fairy Snow

'"And watched the world turn Day-Glo."

'It is just like a fantasy, it's like a daydream.

'It was like I was clambering over the mounds and mounds of polystyrene.'

It's a nice table, this one. It's got some nice features on it.

'Everything's real. Even if it's unreal, it's still real because it exists

'and you can see it and you can touch it and it can also be a figment of your imagination.

'It's like somebody said, "Are you Poly Styrene?" And I said, "No, I'm real. I'm a person."'

# The X-rays were penetrating

# Through the latex breeze

# Synthetic fibre see-thru leaves

# Fell from the rayon trees

# The day the world turned Day-Glo

# You know, you know The world turned Day-Glo

# You know, you know The world turned dayglo

# You know, you know The world turned Day-Glo

# You know... #

Oh!

Good night.

What kind of things do you think of when you talk about Day-Glo and polystyrene?

They mean more to me than somebody just saying "plastic". What kind of images do they bring to your mind?

Em...

Well, it's difficult to explain, really.

I mean, it is plastic, but sort of products, disposable things, throwaway things.

Day-Glo is just, you know, bright colours. A lot of people think it's drug-influenced, but it's not.

It's just about plastics and fantasy and the world just around plastics.

Sometimes they sound sad to me. This may just be my ears.

'Every time we play, people go mad

'and jump all over the stage and things get wrecked.

'It's exciting, but it's like a neurosis, really.

'It's bound to have some side effect on you. You just blank out, you just cut off.

'You don't want to be this thing that they've come to see and say, "No, I can't do it any more."

'It's a novelty, people coming backstage all the time.

'It's quite flattering, but after a while you think, no.

'You just don't want to see any new people.

'If they want to see me, they should see me onstage because they're fans, they're not really friends.

'It's not really good for you because you just start to adopt more and more this stage personality

'for them. That's what they're expecting, so you just act it out.'

-Somebody said to me that your teeth braces, somebody said it was just a device, you know.

-No.

-A stage prop.

-It can't come off.

-Can't it?

-No, not yet, anyway.

-Is it screwed in?

-No, it's cemented on.

-What sort of questions do you ask yourself all the time?

-None any more.

-There's no in-fighting going on?

-No.

-It's all over.

I was going to say, what did you think of the crowd last night? Were you surprised?

-I thought it was good.

-Were you frightened?

-No.

Do you rely on Falcon for sort of, like, psychological protection?

-No.

-He's not like a buffer zone between you and all the bad vibes?

No.

-Do you live in a basement flat in his house?

-Er, why?

-I was just asking.

-Oh.

-I'm not trying to imply you had an affair.

-No, I'm not saying that you are, but I just wondered what the...

-What the significance of it was?

Well, I think... Well, it's sort of like there he can look after you,

-like a patriarch, you know? Do you know what I mean?

-Er, well, no, not really.

We want to go inside because it's really raining very heavily.

-Shall I take these?

-Are these really for me?

-Yeah.

-Oh!

Come on.

It's terribly wet.

-Hello.

-Oh, hello.

-Welcome to EMI Records. My name is Geoff Webb. Would you like to sign our VIP book?

'Plastics play an essential role in reproducing sound and vision and in recording it.'

Hello. This is Radio EMI and today visiting the factory will be X-Ray Spex featuring Poly Styrene.

In the charts this week at Number 22 is their latest single, Germfree Adolescents.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-This is Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex.

-Yes, I know.

-We've come to see what you're doing.

-Are your teeth genuine?

-Pardon?

-Are your teeth genuine?

-Yeah.

Oh.

No, I was saying on telly, you look as if you've got steel teeth.

Very nice.

It's my great pleasure this morning to introduce you to the lead singer Poly Styrene.

-Good morning, Poly.

-Hello.

I want to start off by asking you, Poly Styrene is an unusual name. How did it come about?

Well, I found that name by looking through Yellow Pages.

And it's a plastic, so I just chose that name.

-Different, isn't it?

-Well...

What's your real name?

-You ain't going to tell me, are you?

-No.

-'So you're the sole songwriter?

-Well, you could say that, yeah.

'With the release of your first album, how do you see your music developing?'

I can't really put into words how I see the music developing.

Maybe it will turn into the sound of a Hoover.

# Oh bondage, up yours

# Oh bondage, up yours

# Oh bondage, up yours...

# Bind me, tie me Chain me to the wall

# I wanna be a slave to you all

# Oh bondage, up yours

# Oh bondage, no more

# Oh bondage, up yours

# Oh bondage, no more

# Oh bondage, up yours

# Oh bondage, no more

# Oh bondage, no more! #

-Give us a kiss!

-Good night.

-Give us a kiss!

-On the cheek.

Get off!

PRACTICE PLAYING

'It sort of depends on what you class as shutting yourself off.

'To demand a certain amount of privacy I think is definitely something I'll always do,

'but, er...

'I've never been the type of person to have lots of people around me in any case.

'When you're working, that's something else,

'but when you're sort of by yourself I don't like it. I'm quiet.

'I'm not the only one that's quiet. The others are quiet, too. Jak hates crowds,

'Paul likes to be by himself. He likes living in St Albans. He wouldn't live anywhere else!'

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd